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Thank You.
Tuesday December 7, 2004 Homily by Fr. Robert Altier Second Week of Advent
Reading (Isaiah 40:1-11) Gospel (St. Matthew 18:12-14)
When we hear in the first reading today from
the prophet Isaiah that God is telling the prophet to speak words of comfort to
the people, and to Jerusalem to proclaim that her service is at an end and her
guilt is expiated, these are words that are very wonderful for us because it is
followed up in the Gospel by Our Lord telling us that it is not the Will of His
heavenly Father that a single one of these little ones should be lost. We, of
course, are those little ones. We do not always like to think of ourselves as
being very little, but that is the reality. God does not want us to be lost,
and that is the Good News because we know that in the world in which we live
things are not so good; yet, at the same time, the grace of God is there and
the day will come when He will be able to say, “Your guilt is expiated.”
He is going to restore things, as He makes
very clear: The mountains and the high places and the hills will be made low,
and the rough places are going to be made into a plain. Things are going to be
leveled out and restored. Things are going to be much easier, but in the
meantime there is this time of purification. But if we know there is something
much more wonderful that is coming, then it helps us to be able to make it
through this time. If all we had to look forward to was more bad stuff, then we
would either despair or we would be tempted to give into it because everybody else
is doing it, after all, and so what is the problem? Trying to live according to
the way of God, some people would think, is just too difficult when everybody
else is trying to live in a way that is in opposition to God. But if we have
this promise from Our Lord, just as in Jerusalem several thousand years ago,
that the time of her expiation was complete, that things were going to be much
better, so too do we have that promise today, that in the midst of this world
gone astray, for those who are true to Our Lord, He is going to bring about
comfort and peace. He is going to renew things and restore things. That is the
hope we have to be able to hang onto. The day is going to come, but in the
meantime it still has to get worse and we need to remain faithful in the midst
of it.
In
all of that, we have this promise from Our Lord that He, being the Good
Shepherd, is going to seek out His lost sheep. We probably all know from our
own lives that at one time or another we probably have been straying all over
creation, and yet the Lord has brought us back. And that promise He has made –
that it is not the Will of His heavenly Father that even one of these little
ones should be lost – is a great comfort to us. He does not want us lost. As
long as what we want to do is to try to do what is right, to seek His Will,
then we can be guaranteed that the grace is going to be there from Him to help
us remain faithful; and if we do stray, His grace is going to be there to bring
us back.
Now
we have to be willing to cooperate with that. I am sure the little sheep that
wandered away was very pleased to see the shepherd. Unfortunately, there are
lots of people who, when they stray, are not pleased to see Jesus because they
like their sins too much and they do not want the Shepherd to bring them back.
So what we all need to do is pray, first of all, to remain faithful; secondly,
we need to pray for a true hatred for our sins so that if we do fall into sin
we have the right disposition of heart to seek out the Shepherd, or at least to
respond positively when the Shepherd arrives, because if we give ourselves
totally over to sin and we like it, then we are not going to want to see the
Shepherd and we are going to run from Him. But if we are praying for a hatred
for our sins and if we are praying for fidelity to the Lord, then even if we do
fall we are going to be able to get back up and we are going to seek out our
Good Shepherd. We are going to listen to His voice and follow Him rather than
follow the way of sinfulness.
So
there is much in the midst of our own weakness and in the midst of all the
filth and sin around us to be joyful about. We have the promise of the future
comfort, we have the promise that we have the Good Shepherd, the best Shepherd,
the One Who is going to seek out and find His lost sheep. And as long as His
sheep desire it, they will be restored to the fold and they are going to be
able once again to bring great joy to the heart of their Good Shepherd.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.